Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California along with thousands of other "Okies" seeking jobs, land, dignity, and a future.
"Sense and Sensibility" follows the three Dashwood sisters and their widowed mother as they are forced to leave the family estate at Norland Park and move to Barton Cottage, a modest home on the property of distant relative Sir John Middleton. There, Elinor and Marianne experience love, romance, and heartbreak.
The most popular and memorable of the "Leatherstocking Tales": set in the rugged wilderness of upper New York State during the brutal French and Indian War, it tells the story of the Munro sisters, daughters of a commander in the British army.
Tess Durbeyfield’s father forcibly sends her off to work for the wealthy D’Urberville family, hoping to alleviate their poverty and perhaps secure her a marriage to the cruel and manipulative Alec D’Urberville.
After 10 miserable years with his aunt and uncle, Harry Potter is invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Each book follows another year in Harry's education while more of his frightening destiny is revealed.
Filled with the power of love and the beauty of nature, "Heidi" is a lyrical tale about a little girl sent to live in the mountains of the Swiss Alps with her grandfather.
"Ulysses" chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904.
"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" is a collection of twelve stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring his famous detective. Venture back in time to Victorian London to join literature's greatest detective team — the brilliant Sherlock Holmes and his devoted assistant, Dr. Watson — as they investigate a dozen of their best-known cases.
Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, Dumas's grand historical romance recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dant's, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal.
"The Old Man and the Sea" is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal: a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.
Four adventurous siblings--Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie--step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch.
In the Gothic towers of the cathedral of Notre-Dame—which has been subjected to decades of degradation and neglect—lives its bell ringer, Quasimodo. Persecuted as wicked and pilloried for his broken appearance, he’s shown kindness only by the alluring Esmeralda, an outsider herself, who fills Quasimodo’s heart with a hope and devotion beyond reason.
From the moment Joseph the carpenter carves a puppet that can walk and talk, this wildly inventive fantasy takes Pinocchio through countless adventures, in the course of which his nose grows whenever he tells a lie, he is turned into a donkey, and is swallowed by a dogfish, before he gains real happiness.
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendiá family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad and alive with unforgettable men and women--brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul--this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
Set in England in the Middle Ages, with colorful descriptions of a tournament, outlaws, a witch trial, and divisions between Jews and Christians, Normans and Saxons, "Ivanhoe" was credited by many, including Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin, with inspiring increased interest in chivalric romance and medievalism.
Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a young private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming, who flees from the field of battle. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound, a "red badge of courage", to counteract his cowardice.
Set in the late 19th century, "Anne of Green Gables" recounts the adventures of 11 year old orphan girl Anne Shirley sent by mistake to two middle-aged siblings, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had originally intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm in the fictional town of Avonlea in Prince Edward Island, Canada.
From the meadow of his youth to the crowded, frosty streets of London, "Black Beauty" tells the story of his life under many masters in Victorian England, among them the kind Squire Gordon, the principled Jeremiah Barker, and the exploitive Nicholas Skinner.
Refusing to grow up, Peter lives in the magical world of Neverland with pirates, fairies, and mermaids. With the help of the Lost Boys and the Darling children, Peter bravely battles the evil Captain Hook and his pirate crew in an endless chase around the magical island..
Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield—weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep.
